THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE # 28: THE RESONATOR: MISKATONIC U (2021) ***

(Streamed via Pluto TV)

When producer Charles Band came up with the idea of “Deadly Ten”, it allowed him to crowdsource funds from fans who wanted to see him dip into his back catalogue of horror films and create sequels, reboots, re-imaginings, and straight-up rip-offs of his old franchises.  Among the series he’s been mining are Puppet Master, Necropolis, and Femalien.  I don’t think anyone would get too upset at the prospect of Band meddling with those brands.  However, The Resonator:  Miskatonic U is a sequel/updating of Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond, one of the greatest horror films of the ’80s.  When you start messing around with classics like that, I start to get nervous.  He and his writer/director William Butler (who got his start with Band acting in Ghoulies 2) were wise not to put the From Beyond moniker in the title as there is no way this could ever hope to compete with that immortal all-timer. 

It begins with a dedication to Gordon, which is a nice touch, and one of the characters is even named “Professor Gordon”, but the movie is closer in tone and feel to something like The Killer Eye than From Beyond.  Speaking as a fan of The Killer Eye, that’s not a bad thing.  If you go into it with reserved expectations, you’ll probably enjoy it as much as I did.  Like most of the Deadly Ten films, it’s kind of fun if you’re in the right frame of mind. 

A cocksure student at Miskatonic University is hellbent on recreating his dead father’s experiments.  He cobbles together a “resonator” that stimulates the user’s pineal gland and allows them to see into another dimension.  After a night of drinking, he invites some friends back to the lab and turns on the machine.  Naturally, he unleashes a bunch of monsters and has to deal with his professor who wants to use the machine to make himself a god.  

While nothing here comes close to approaching the greatness of From Beyond (and frankly, what could?), there is some good stuff.  I dug the appearance of the sexy squid woman who lurks about whenever the machine is turned on.   Speaking of being turned on, the psychic sexual visions are well done, if a tad brief.  Even though much of this feels low rent and cheesy, Butler keeps the pace going at a steady clip (the scant sixty-four-minute running time certainly helps).  The young cast members aren’t exactly memorable, but it helps that the supporting cast is peppered with old pros like Amanda Wyss and Michael Pare.

Overall, The Resonator:  Miskatonic U probably won’t convert any new fans to Band’s Full Moon label, but those who enjoy his recent output should be thoroughly entertained.  The ending opens up the possibility for a sequel as it introduces a very familiar character into the fold in the final moments.  This scene is very much like a Marvel movie post-credits sequence, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Band was angling to make this a franchise a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Would that make it the Miskatonic Cinematic Universe?

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE # 27: KISS OF THE DAMNED (2013) **

(Streamed via Plex)

A vampire babe named Djuna (Josephine de la Baume) picks up Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia from Rocky Balboa) at a video store.  They quickly fall in love, and she decides the only way they can be together is to turn him into a vampire.  Their bliss is soon interrupted when her troublemaking sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) comes for a visit.  

Written and directed by John Cassavetes’ daughter Xan, Kiss of the Damned is simultaneously arty and low rent.  Superficially, it looks classy and respectable, but there’s really not much here to differentiate it from countless other bloodsucker dramas that have come before.  It works slightly better during the courtship phase of Djuna and Paolo’s relationship than when she is showing him the ropes of being a vampire.  The film does get a little lift once Mimi enters the picture, however her constant bickering with Djuna doesn’t have much dramatic oomph to carry the bulk of the picture.  It also doesn’t help that vampire sex scenes are uneven at best.  While Ventimiglia and Mesquida’s tryst in the shower is appropriately steamy, the rest of the lovemaking/blood drinking sequences offer more tease than please.  The only touch I really enjoyed was the fact they drink a synthetic blood substitute called “politically correct plasma”. 

Mesquida has a bit of spark about her, but de la Baume is pretty annoying as the lead bloodsucker.  She spends just as much time whining as she does drinking blood, which ruins some of the fun.  Ventimiglia is fine if a bit bland as the romantic lead.  Michael Rapaport is amusing though in an extended cameo as Ventimiglia’s coke-snorting agent.  Another bright spot is Riley Keough who appears late in the game as a victim.  You’ll wish she had more to do because when she’s on screen, this undead drama fitfully comes to life.

Ultimately, Kiss of the Damned doesn’t explore any new territory.  If you like romantically tinged vampire dramas, you might enjoy it.  For me, it was fine, but forgettable.  I guess it might’ve worked better if the vampires weren’t a bunch of self-absorbed, classist fat cats.  If anything, the film just goes to show that vampire hoity-toity cocktail parties are just as boring as human ones.

SELF SERVICE GIRLS (1975) ** ½

German softcore grandmaster Erwin C. Dietrich wrote and directed this sexy anthology skin flick.  The wraparound sequences (**) involve a pervert dropping pennies in a porno viewer and watching assorted smut.  It’s a thin, but serviceable framework for this sort of thing, I guess.  The segments themselves are about ten minutes long each, and the best ones are weighted towards the beginning.  

The first segment (*** ½) revolves around a flirty babe (Rita Waldenberg) playing duckpin bowling.  When she excuses herself to “wash her hands”, she strips down to nothing and waits for the male bowlers to sneak into the bathroom to fuck her.  This sequence is fun and steamy, and benefits from a sexy performance by Waldenberg, even if the climax is a bit of a… ahem… wash.  

Sequence two (*** ½) has a hot nurse (Christa Free) assisting a doctor performing a circumcision.  She then takes it upon herself to make sure the patient’s dick still works after the operation and fucks him.  This story has some hilarious dubbing (“How you doing, lamb chop?”), and a sexy performance by Free as the horny nurse.  

A sexy sculptress (Marianne Dupont) picks up a dude with a big dick in a coed sauna in the next segment (*** ½).  She then takes him back to her studio and fucks him.  Like the last story, it benefits from a hot performance by the leading lady, and some wonderfully cheesy dialogue, which only adds to the fun.  

The fourth tale (**) involves a horny passenger who bangs a sexy stewardess (Claudia Fielers) in an airplane bathroom during a flight.  This story is the most basic of the bunch as it’s got a lame set-up and a ho-hum payoff.    While it continues the theme of sex in a public bathroom from the first segment, it’s nowhere near as hot or fun.  

The fifth story (** ½) is about a guy who watches vintage porno cartoons before spying on his hot to trot neighbor (Esther Studer) as she masturbates.  Your enjoyment of this sequence may hinge on your tolerance for all the old-timey adults-only animation.  I have to be honest when I say, it didn’t do a whole lot for me.  I guess if you ever wanted to see a cartoon where a guy goes to a gloryhole and gets pleasured by a cow, here you go.  At least the flesh-and-blood stuff features some graphic close-ups of Studer playing with herself.  There’s also a brief vintage hardcore segment where Santa Claus hooks a woman up to a fuck machine.

After that, it’s time for the sixth segment (**).  A musician practices his violin, and his hot neighbor (Monika Rohde) gets so turned on by his playing that she has to play with herself.  This one, like the stewardess story is all set-up and little payoff and suffers from déjà vu from the previous segment of horny neighbors masturbating.

The final story (**) is yet another tale of horny neighbors.  This time out, a guy can’t get any sleep because the couple next door keep fucking all night long.  He sets out to get revenge on them, but naturally, it backfires.  This one would’ve been okay if it didn’t go on so long and wasn’t the third one in a row about horny neighbors.  It’s not bad, but it doesn’t exactly end the movie with a bang, so to speak.  

AKA:  Tempting Roommates.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #26: ONE MISSED CALL: FINAL (2006) ** ½

(Streamed via Midnight Pulp)

I watched One Missed Call 2 during the early days of this thirty-one-movie watching project.  I figured why wait to close out the trilogy?  As it turns out, it’s the best of the trio.

A group of Japanese schoolkids bully a classmate until she finally cracks and tries to commit suicide.  The indifferent brats then head to South Korea on a field trip.  During their sightseeing tour, the students begin receiving ominous phone calls that portend their impending death.  

There are a couple interesting elements here that help to separate Final from the other films in the One Missed Call series.  The first is the fact that the ghostly girl is aided in her quest for revenge by a friend who helps select the order of the victims from a class photo.  Another new wrinkle is the fact that the would-be victims can escape their death by forwarding their deadly phone call to another student.  This adds to the animosity and distrust among the circle of classmates.  Because of that, the horror comes not only from the ghostly girl, but seeing how the classmates turn on one another.  This helps give this installment a unique energy.  Another cool thing is that the deaths sometimes feel like they came out of a Final Destination movie (especially the one involving a live wire), which might explain the subtitle.  Although some of the deaths are more effective than others (the scene where the guy pukes feathers is kind of lame), they work reasonably well for the most part.  

I was intending to give this a favorable review until the third act rolled around.  The subplot involving people trying to stop the ghostly girl’s reign of terror by flooding her inbox with emails containing “positive messages” made my eyeballs roll back into my fucking skull.  That dumb scene definitely knocked the movie down a notch in my book.  However, even with that supremely shitty sequence, One Missed Call:  Final is easily the best film in the franchise.

AKA:  One Missed Call 3:  Final.  AKA:  The Call:  Final.  AKA:  Final Call.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #25: GORGON VIDEO MAGAZINE (1989) ***

(Streamed via B-Zone)

Michael Berryman hosts this horror video magazine from the good people at Gorgon Video.  He’s pretty amusing too.  Dressed in his Hills Have Eyes get-up, Berryman really gets into his introductions and helps make this uneven compilation worthwhile.  

The first segment is a good interview with Wes Craven.  Much of the discussion revolves around Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes.  We also see him in behind the scenes footage of Shocker.  (Wes calls it, “the purest film Wes Craven has ever done”.  LOL.  Sure, Wes.)  Next up is an interview with KNB Effects.  They talk about some of the films that inspired them before taking us on a tour of their studio.  Then, we have a segment devoted to Linnea Quigley.  Naturally, they show her immortal “Dance of the Double Chainsaws” from Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.  There are also scenes from Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, and the iconic lipstick scene from Night of the Demons.  Next, is a look inside Troma Studios.  Lloyd Kaufman is his usually gregarious self, although he’s slightly more subdued here than he’d later become.  Scenes from The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger 2, and Rabid Grannies are also shown.

There’s also a review corner that features reviews for Cameron’s Closet, Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer, Bad Taste, and Vicious.  Then Berryman talks about drive-in classics like A Bucket of Blood and Attack of the Giant Leeches that turns into a plug for Sinister Cinema.  Things wind down in the end with concert footage of GWAR and trailers for Death Spa, Girlfriend from Hell, and Judgment Day.

As a clip show/horror digest, it’s fun.  It probably would’ve been better as a forty-five-minute video rather than seventy as it begins running out of steam near the end.  It’s not quite up to snuff with the likes of the Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors or Stephen King’s World of Horror videos, but it’s a breezy seventy minutes of blood, gore, and info.  (I especially enjoyed the segments on Craven and Quigley.)  

EROTICISE (1983) ***

In the ‘80s, workout tapes were all the rage.  As was softcore smut.  Writer/director Ed Hansen, the genius he is, hit upon a million-dollar idea:  Why not combine the two?  Thus, Eroticise was born.  

What is Eroticise, you ask?  Well, it LOOKS like the average workout tape your great aunt would watch.  However, stick with it past the first twenty minutes or so of fully clothed stretching, warm-ups, and exercises and you’ll be treated to long workout routines performed by sexy naked women on someone’s deck (probably Hansen’s).  Except for all the thigh-high legwarmers and sweatbands, of course.  I mean, this was the ‘80s after all.  

What makes Eroticise worth watching, aside from the au natural aerobics?  Well, the fact that Kitten Natividad is one of the performers makes this an immediate classic in my book.  Just watching the impossibly busty Kitten bounce, gyrate, jiggle, and cavort around totally nude is enough for me to recommend this wholeheartedly.  (Natividad and Hansen went on to collaborate on the Takin’ It Off series, which are also well worth watching.)  The scenes with the other ladies are pretty good too, and the routines in which they all participate in the exercises together are a lot of fun.  (I’m thinking specifically the part where they all lay in a circle and do bicycle kicks.)  The final cooldown sequence where the ladies splash around in a hot tub pouring champagne on each other is the perfect capper on an already awesome hour of non-stop fun.

Will anybody ever use Eroticise as an honest to God workout tape?  Unless the only muscle they intend on exercising is their forearm, probably not.  (For many… okay… me, that’s exercise enough.)  There is nothing in the way of actual instruction and/or informative substance here.  What there is plenty of is scenes of Kitten Natividad and company naked, and for me, that was enough.  

GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE (2021) ***

Freshly evicted from their New York apartment, a single mom (Carrie Coon) and her two kids (McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard) move to her father’s dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere to start anew.  One thing she never told her kids:  Their grandfather was a Ghostbuster.  He also left behind clues to prevent a major supernatural cataclysm the likes that hasn’t been experienced since 1984.  It’s then up to the kids to save the town (and possibly the world) from the evil spirits.  

Ghostbusters:  Afterlife was co-written and directed by Jason Reitman, son of the original Ghostbusters director, Ivan.  What makes the film work is that he gives the film his own unique comedic spin while very much honoring what came before.  When the movie is doing its own thing, it works rather well.  The early scenes of the kids finding the proton pack, PKE meters, and traps is a lot of fun, as is the scene where they take the old ECTO-1 out for a test spin to bust their first ghost.  

When Reitman leans into the nostalgic aspects of the story, he leans perhaps a little too hard, hammering many of the callbacks to the first film squarely on the nose.  While it suffers from the occasional “member berries” moment, when Afterlife clicks, it’s enormously entertaining.  Fans of the original may be dismayed that it takes a while for the OG Ghostbusters to make their entrance, but it’s well worth the wait.  Again, some of their schtick relies too heavily on what they did thirty-seven years ago, but there is at least one huge laugh to be had during their brief reunion.  Do I wish they had more to do?  Yes.  Do I wish the editing was a little tighter in the second act?  Sure.  However, Ghostbusters fans will no doubt get a kick out of much of the busting that takes place.  

The performances are all around great, which helps give this iteration in the franchise its own identity.  Coon is fun as the world-weary mom whose main advice to her kids is “Don’t be yourself”.  McKenna Grace is a star in the making.  Much of the movie rests on her shoulders and she gamely carries it in stride.  Finn Wolfhard isn’t quite as successful, but that’s mostly because his role is just the classic older brother cliché character.  Even then, he still gets his share of moments.  

It’s Paul Rudd who completely steals the movie as the kids’ teacher who nerds out when he sees the Ghostbuster equipment.  He also gets the biggest laugh when he shows his class a very inappropriate film.  If there is a sequel (and the post-credits scene suggests there might), I hope he becomes a full-fledged Ghostbuster because he is the best thing about the flick.  

Overall, it’s not quite as memorable as Ghostbusters 2, but it’s certainly more fun than the recent reboot.  It arguably has as much heart as the original as I will freely admit it hit me in the feels a few times.  While I wish Reitman didn’t rehash so much of the plot of the original (especially in the third act), Afterlife proves there is plenty of life left in the Ghostbusters franchise.